I finished most all I’m going to read for this week, so here are my last reaction reviews on this week’s books…
Amazing Spider-Man #592
Amazing Spider-Man
I can’t really gripe about anything here, nor can I say anything in this ish really excited me. I’ve been a big supporter on all ASM stuff since Brand New Day began, but this ish was just standard Spidey stock—and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
Outsiders #17
Outsiders
Easily my favorite book coming out from DC right now, Peter Tomasi infuses tons of personality into a team of characters I didn’t care at all about till he took over, and Lee Garbett is just tops in my book—I love that guy’s art on anything and everything! Continue Reading “More of the quickest hits!”→
Working atWizardgives me access to way more comics than I should be reading each week. Though I guess it is my job, so I really should be reading tons of comics, shouldn’t I?! Either way, I cannot really say no to a huge stack of books each week—especially the kind you can read for free. When it comes to actually purchasing books, I am much more discerning, but when I can flip through a stack of books and read whatever I want, I’ll pretty much give anything and everything a shot.
Most weeks, I read somewhere between 15 to 30 new comics. With Wizard‘s online reviews on hiatus, and me not really able to write full reviews of each book anyway due to time considerations, I thought I’d start a little section here that’ll essentially be “Two line comic book reviews.” Basically, I’ll just weigh in quickly on each issue I read, as often as I can. These reviews are by no means super detailed and are very much quantity over in-depth quality, so here’s your first hors d’oeuvres platter of quickie comic reviews from EnemyOfPeanuts.com. (The following are in random order, because I can’t be bothered by the alphabet today.) Continue Reading “The quickest hits, aka “Two Line Comic Book Reviews!””→
I’ve been reading Robert Kirkman’s Invincible for years, and I’ve come to prefer current artist Ryan Ottley more than series co-creator Cory Walker, but damn! You gotta show some respect when the guy can return to the book for two-issues and put out gorgeous art like this!
Is your mind not blown?!
Now, this is awesome for a few reasons…
First, it features Allen the Alien, who is probably in my top five comic characters of all time. I don’t care if you’ve got 70 years of DC or Marvel comics history to back you up, something about a hulking, one-eyed, smiley alien is just pure and fun and epitomizes one of the reasons I still love superhero comics. So, yeah, he makes my top five (more on this later, maybe).
Second, while I’ve been a big fan of Invincible for a long while, the book hasn’t been grabbing me like it used to, save the last time I got extremely excited about this book with November’s Allen the Alien and Omni-Man-centric issue #55! As I said back in Wizard Universe’s Thursday Morning Quarterback review column that chilly, November week:
“When an issue kicks off with Mark Grayson (Invincible) and Atom Eve getting clothes-less and cuddly, you know what that means, right?! No, not sex! Well, yes…sex…but more importantly, an issue of Invincible starring the greatest comic character since sliced bread: Allen the Alien! As a diehard Invincible fan, I have to confess that little purple kids murdering people and lovey-dovey Mark and Eve haven’t held my interest much over the past couple issues. However, take me to space and show me my favorite character in the book (Allen the mutha-lovin’ alien!) teaming up with Omni-Man for an epic prison break story where the duo crushes a Viltrumite’s head like a mustachioed grape…yeah, I’m back in, big-time! Seriously, issues like this are why I fell in love with this book—this is Invincible at it’s best! Oh, and Battle Beast returns this ish! Battle Beast! Now, seriously, when do we get the Allen the Alien/Battle Beast Invincible Team-Up ongoing?”
So, rounding out that second point, I love this duo of Allen and Nolan (Omni-Man) and the promise of more is just f–king fantastic!
Thirdly, this book is at its best for me (of late, at least) when it is dropping tidbits or major points about the inevitable conflict with the Viltrumites, so a two-parter that sets the scene for that and features my main men…yeah, I am pretty excited for these two issue!
Because who doesn’t love reading about things someone else likes on the internet, I bring you Choice Comic Covers: Or simply, my favorite comic covers. The first entry in “The Chosen” is back from the days when Greg Rucka was taking the ol’ Canucklehead on a series of gritty, street-level adventures like avenging a waitress’ death after she’s gunned down by a man-cult and busting up human trafficking rings. I think I have a particular soft spot for this one as the issue came out right when I was getting back into comics hardcore and I gobbled up every issue of Rucka’s Wolverine. The cover, by Esad Ribic, is simply striking, badass and does a great job expressing what this book was all about back then. Anywho, enjoy!
As a guy who reads a butt-ton of comics, it’s pretty hard not to come up with an idea or two for some of my own panel-by-panel storytelling—Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic is one such idea. EoP came to me as the name for a strip I could do based on a few ideas that had been kicked around by some close friends and myself back in college (former roommate Matt Misch and good buddy Frank Johnson stand out as people I recall discussing the idea with, though there are assuredly many more). Essentially, the story would be based loosely on me but more so on my allergy (peanuts! legumes!), and the original idea was almost entirely me fighting Mr. Peanut…constantly. The idea has evolved quite a bit since then (including the creation of the Enemy of Peanuts, who—though fictional—is twittering away already), as it had a comic appeal I couldn’t quite pass up, and I’ve now started laying down some of the over-arching plot outlines, fight scenes and such. It should be a lot of fun, so stay tuned.
As far as the art goes, I’m well aware that I am not an artist (I’d say “amateur cartoonist” at best), but years of doodling comics and characters in notepad margins shouldn’t go to waste! So, here, I am going to be tackling art duties on the strip…for now. In a perfect world, some amazing unknown artistic talent (Holy Shit! It could be you!) will stumble across my “strips” (read: storyboards) and offer his skills to make this hobby into a real cinematic adventure. Or, with luck, practice will make perfect and I’ll get kinda good. Who knows?!
That said, I’d love to get some feedback on the photoshop aid I’m using for the time being. The promo images above are all the same save a photoshop effect making them look, hopefully, better. I’d be insanely appreciative of anyone who’ll leave some comments about which effects you like better and which image-style has or would have you most excited to read the EoP’s adventures every week (or whatever the posting schedule ends up being for the strip).
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by and checking the early stages of Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic out, and please, leave a little feedback
